Calcutta: Though the luminaries attached to it are not always in attendance, the National Cricket Academy has decided to include some more big names this season. While Madanlal will be with Kapil Dev as the pace-bowling consultant, Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar, Gundappa Viswanath, Chandu Borde and Mohinder Amarnath will be the batting consultants.

However, the chief coach’s post has been kept vacant. While the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has opened a dialogue with Dav Whatmore, there’s also a strong possibility of India coach John Wright being assigned to the NCA after the Dhaka tri-series. The Indian team does not have any commitments till mid-August.

These decisions were taken in Thursday’s NCA meeting in the city. It was attended by NCA chairman Sunil Gavaskar, director Brijesh Patel, chief Technical Research Development Officer Dilip Vengsarkar, BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya and the other committee members.

“We also have Erapalli Prasanna, Padmakar Shivalkar and Laxman Sivaramakrishnan as the spin bowling coaches while Syed Kirmani and Kiran More will be in charge of the wicket-keeping department,” Dalmiya announced.

Meanwhile, the names of the other zonal coaches have also been announced. In a major revamp, all the East Zone coaches have been changed. While India’s current stand-in coach Ashok Malhotra heads the East Zone academy replacing Saba Karim, Dattatreya Mukherjee and S. Venkatram come in place of Barun Burman and Jeemut Mohanty.

Also, while the under-19 zonal camps will be held from April 21-May 31, the under-15, under-17 and under-21 camps will be held from May 1-30, August 1-30 and July 1-30, respectively. The India A camp will take place from June 1-30.

“The Hemu Adhikari Trophy for the under-19 inter-zonal tournament will be converted to two-day games instead of the one-day format held till last season,” Dalmiya added.

The BCCI president also said that the NCA would be expanded following the grant of 12 acres of land to the BCCI by the Karnataka Cricket Association.